All Moved In!

Buenas tardes!

It's true. I am indeed moved in. In case you did not know, I have been living out of a bag (or my car) for much of the last 3 years. It is not that I have not had a place to put my things, I simply move so often that I choose to just leave everything packed and take out only what I need in order to make the whole packing up and moving again process that much easier. In addition, in general, I HATE packing. Loathe it. AND unpacking. I tend to put it off for a long time. I am not one of those people who arrives at her new abode and immediately starts nesting. No, no, I will leave things in my bag and wear the same outfits over and over for weeks until I summon the energy to actually organize things. Ask anyone I have ever lived with (Molly, Sarah, Dad and Susan - these two win a special award as their house is more or less a showroom, so bags of clothes spread all over are not ideal;S). But this time, I am nesting. I live on the 9th floor in a gorgeous studio apartment with a balcony in the cute neighborhood of Alto Palermo with lots of fresh fruit and veggie markets and adorable sidewalk cafes. I absolutely love it. So in an effort to follow my lovely stepmom's orders, I unpacked all of my belongings by the end of Day 1 (another task was to buy flowers, but currently the only "vase" I have is the blender, so Im having to hold off on that!).

So last week was a big week for me. I started school and moved into my very own apartment. Classes on Thursday and Friday were great. My classmates have been quite nice to me, and I even met a chica from Ecuador;). Friday night's class was so packed with people in a very small room that I think we all started to feel like cattle stuffed in the barn. But, luckily, there are plans to move us into a bigger room next week. I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Saturday, I met up with a girl I met two years ago while traveling in Patagonia in Southern Argentina. She is Argentinian and lives in a nearby neighborhood, so I went over to her house to catch up and drink mate (a strong tea you drink out of a gourd and pass around). She is a really sweet person, and I love having Argentinian friends with whom to hang out and practice my Spanish. I LOVE speaking Spanish, and, in spite of living here, I actually do not get to speak it as much as I would like. I listen to it in classes, but do far more listening than speaking in those situations. I have several Argentinian and Ecuadorian friends that I meet up with each week to keep myself on top of my Spanish-speaking game!

This week brings more classes, as well as a meeting with a Rotary club to plan my first presentation...eek! Ill be sure to update you on how it all goes.

VIVA!